I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and fling it in thy face by the handful!”
He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with a gloomy air.
She thought herself victorious, and continued,—
“I tell you that I belong to my Phoebus, that ‘tis Phoebus whom I love, that ‘tis Phoebus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you are ugly!
Begone!”
He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot iron is applied.
“Die, then!” he said, gnashing his teeth.
She saw his terrible look and tried to fly.
He caught her once more, he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with rapid strides towards the corner of the Tour-Roland, dragging her after him along the pavement by her beautiful hands.
On arriving there, he turned to her,—
“For the last time, will you be mine?”
She replied with emphasis,—
“No!”
Then he cried in a loud voice,—
“Gudule!
Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!”
The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow.
She looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the wall, and held her like a hand of iron.
“Hold her well,” said the priest; “‘tis the gypsy escaped.
Release her not.
I will go in search of the sergeants.
You shall see her hanged.”
A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these bloody words—“Hah! hah! hah!”—The gypsy watched the priest retire in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame.
A cavalcade was heard in that direction.
The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse.
Panting with terror, she tried to disengage herself.
She writhed, she made many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with incredible strength.
The lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met around it.
One would have said that this hand was riveted to her arm.
It was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.
She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of death took possession of her.
She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her love for Phoebus, of all that was vanishing and all that was approaching, of the priest who was denouncing her, of the headsman who was to come, of the gallows which was there.
Then she felt terror mount to the very roots of her hair and she heard the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a very low tone:
“Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!”
She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the fierce face of the sacked nun through the bars.
“What have I done to you?” she said, almost lifeless.
The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong irritated, mocking intonation:
“Daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt!”
The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair, comprehending that it was no human being she had to deal with.
All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy’s question had taken all this time to reach her brain,—“‘What have you done to me?’ you say!
Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy!
Well! listen.—I had a child! you see!
I had a child! a child, I tell you!—a pretty little girl!—my Agnes!” she went on wildly, kissing something in the dark.—“Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they took my child from me; they stole my child; they ate my child.
That is what you have done to me.”
The young girl replied like a lamb,—
“Alas! perchance I was not born then!”
“Oh! yes!” returned the recluse, “you must have been born.
You were among them.
She would be the same age as you! so!—I have been here fifteen years; fifteen years have I suffered; fifteen years have I prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head against these four walls—I tell you that ‘twas the gypsies who stole her from me, do you hear that? and who ate her with their teeth.—Have you a heart? imagine a child playing, a child sucking; a child sleeping.
It is so innocent a thing!—Well! that, that is what they took from me, what they killed.